I loved Dark Souls, so I'm excited to see what they do for the sequel. Though I hope the "more actiony" combat rumor doesn't turn out to be true. I thought the combat in the first two was spot on.

It could be better. I played a relatively chunky knight type, and I could still mostly get away with roll-stab-roll-stab-roll-stab to beat everyone. And if there wasn't room to roll, I'd just pull out the Zweihander and clobber everyone.

It'd be nice if there was some risk-reward mechanism for stamina when attacking, like perfectly executed combos returned all / some of your stamina used during the combo, and to maintain difficulty, you could just have bosses which, when attacking without using combos, could one shot your stamina in response. Dark Souls does this already, to some extent, but by forcing you to position yourself or use your shield correctly, which can make some of the bosses incredibly boring (Asylum Demon and the ilk).

The impression i got from that video was. More of the same. Which isn't a bad thing. I think this is what most of us were worried about when they announced that Hidetaka Miyazaki wouldn't return. We all thought the worst. Looking at it though, it still looks really unforgiving.

I just hope they keep the non-linear gameplay but make objectives more obvious and explain a bit more about the game mechanics.

It could be better. I played a relatively chunky knight type, and I could still mostly get away with roll-stab-roll-stab-roll-stab to beat everyone. And if there wasn't room to roll, I'd just pull out the Zweihander and clobber everyone.

It'd be nice if there was some risk-reward mechanism for stamina when attacking, like perfectly executed combos returned all / some of your stamina used during the combo, and to maintain difficulty, you could just have bosses which, when attacking without using combos, could one shot your stamina in response. Dark Souls does this already, to some extent, but by forcing you to position yourself or use your shield correctly, which can make some of the bosses incredibly boring (Asylum Demon and the ilk).

This is pretty much the experience both of my friends had with the game. Patience makes it both not difficult and relatively boring.